Santa Cruz Island Ready for Close-up

Gloria Swanson starred in Cecil B. DeMille’s silent film Male and Female, but the leading player in this 1919 photo is Santa Cruz Island. If you look closely at the beach, you can just make out a few of the palms Paramount used to dress up the rugged location of Frys Harbor.

“Two large barges were towed from San Pedro, loaded with three dozen big palms, coconut trees, banana trees loaded with fruit, rose bushes, and the like,” recalled island resident Margaret Holden Eaton in Diary of a Sea Captain’s Wife.

This landscape shot is part of the collection of stills from Male and Female taken by photographer and cinematographer Karl Struss and preserved in the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History Archives. The Museum Archives are open to researchers by appointment. Collections highlight various aspects of the natural and cultural history of our region – including the Channel Islands.